Art Of The Day Weekly

#209 - from 24 March 2011 to 30 March 2011

Alexandr Grachtchenkov (1952), Norilsk, 1981. Original gelatino-argentic proof. Signed and dated in ink under the image, in the margin. Counter-signed, title and date on the back. 50,6 x 30 cm with margins. Estimate: €1000-1500. Auction at Piasa Paris on 28 March 2011.

IN THE AIR

China, number 1

Twenty years ago, there was no art market in China. Ten years ago, no one could name a Chinese artist. Today, China is on top of the world. The oldest master most in demand at auctions in 2010 was Fang Danian (XIVth century) for a landscape that sold for more than 34 million Euros last December. With that sale alone, the Beijing Jiuge auction house could position itself among the 5 first French houses in the sector … In terms of revenue, out of the top 20 most important auction houses in the world, half of them are now Chinese. According to figures given by Artprice on 18 March, the year 2010 has confirmed that revolution: China has become the number one market in the world, and represents 33% of sales, ahead of the USA (30%), Great-Britain (19%), and, far behind, France (5%). This rise to power concerns all periods: among the modern artists, as far a sales income is concerned, Qi Baishi is the one most in demand, right behind Picasso and ahead of Warhol, while among the contemporary «Top Ten», American artists Basquiat, Koons and Prince have to stand up to six Chinese “rivals”…
• The Artprice 2010 report may be downloaded as of 5 April 2011

EXHIBITIONS

Step in for one Caillebotte, get two

PARIS – We all know Gustave and his Impressionist paintings, full of views of Paris – stations, bridges, squares – and of picturesque professions such as parquet planers. And he is also known for his sumptuous legacy of 40 paintings by Monet, Renoir and Degas, which the French State accepted with great hesitation, after years of doubts and discussions … So it seems this man who died so young, at the age of 46, in 1894, had a brother. That is what the exhibition teaches us by presenting the work of Martial (1853-1910), the photographer, who was first a composer and friend of Saint-Saëns and Debussy. A great number of photographs document the brothers’ shared passions and are systematically placed facing Gustave’s paintings: yachting, horticulture or the simple pleasures of family life, picnics or afternoons in the garden.
• Dans l’intimité des frères Caillebotte, peintre et photographe (In the intimacy of the Caillebotte brothers, painter and photographer) at the musée Jacquemart-André from 25 March to 11 July 2011.

Three Van Dongens, for the price of one

PARIS – Fauvist, anarchist and a socialite, that is the description of Kees Van Dongen (1877-1968) in the retrospective that opens at the musée d’Art moderne. These three attributes characterize him quite well. The last one is the one that most stays in the public’s mind: Van Dongen was the portrait artist of the high society of the Roaring Twenties, with the powdered women under the sun-lights, who loved the night life and tango. The fact he was a Fauvist is also obvious as his colors continue to shine even today – the red above all. But what about his being an anarchist? We have to go back to the beginning of his career to find traces of it: the artist was close to those circles when he was 20 years old, was the destroyer of common morality and of injustice, and he sketched the lowest depths of Rotterdam. If the exhibition succeeds in having this aspect of the artist accepted under the patina of high society which completely cannibalized the artist, then it will have reached its objective.
• Van Dongen at the musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris from 25 March to 17 July 2011.

AUCTIONS

Gourdon, the capital of Art Déco

PARIS - The record sales of the century are multiplying and we are barely in 2011… This one, from the funds put together over a twenty year period by the owner of the castle of Gourdon, in the Alpes-Maritimes region, is presented as the “crème de la crème” of Art déco. After being the poor element of furniture in the XXth century, this style that was put under the limelight at the International Exposition of 1925 in Paris, has become over the last twenty years the tip of the diamond. At the Palais de Tokyo, everyone expects a dazzling sale for these very rare pieces of furniture. While estimates do not dare go past the records reached for Eileen Gray during the Bergé-Saint Laurent sale, we foresee in any case over 3 million Euros for the panelling of the Palmiers or for the table in egg shell and the black lacquered armchairs designed for Madeleine Vionnet, both by Jean Dunand, and between 2 and 3 million Euros for the strange Chaise longue aux skis created by Ruhlmann for the maharajah of Indore. This decorator, a lover of noble materials such as shagreen, turtle shell or Macassar ebony, will be one of the stars of the event: out of the 500 lots presented in three days, nearly 50 bear his signature. The others, overlapping Art nouveau and the forties, include Charlotte Perriand, the Martel brothers, Pierre Chareau and various members of the UAM (Union des artistes modernes – Union of modern artists).
Les collections du château de Gourdon at Palais de Tokyo (Christie’s) from 29 to 31 March 2011. Exhibition from 25 to 28 March.

From Russia, with love

PARIS – A century of Russian, Soviet and other photography: the period covered by the sale organized by Piasa is ambitious. It includes supporters of picturialism such as Andreiev, the avant-gardist of fantastic literature and pioneer of autochrome, as well as photographs from the constructivist movement, such as Rodchenko, who loved the speed, the low-angle shots, framing. The endless period of the war is documented with strong images by Baltermants. Abramochkin and Macijauskas explore the life in the depths of the republics – from Lithuania to the lake Baikal. The contrast with the new generations is amazing. Boris Mikhailkov who represents it and sarcastically shot vacationers on the Dead sea, is an essential link: strongly counter-revolutionary attitudes such as irony, cynicism, doubt and poetry, developed urgently by Moukhin, Irina Polin or Youri Toroptsov. The images are estimated between 500 and 3000 euros.
• Photographie russe et soviétique at Richelieu-Drouot (Piasa) 28 March 2011

ARTIST OF THE WEEK

Pomodoro, the age of bronze

He is one of the patriarchs of Italian contemporary art. Even since his brother Gio died in 2002, Arnaldo Pomodoro , born in 1926, is the last one to carry the family torch. With a keen concern for the right atmosphere for creators, he opened a foundation in Milano in a former turbine plant to exhibit his contemporaries while pursuing his own work. He expresses it in monumental, metallic – with an infallible passion for bronze - abstract volumes, spheres covered with personal hieroglyphs, metallic parchments, in forms of steles, pyramids or obelisks such as the 7mt. tall Lancia di Luce II, that inspires elevated thoughts and is shown for a few weeks in the courtyard of the Italian embassy in Paris. While the large exhibition in the gardens of the Palais-Royal in 2002 is still vivid in our memories, the retrospective at the Tornabuoni gallery aims at being still more exhaustive, bringing together some 50 years of creation, from 1960 to 2010, with as many works of art.
• The Arnaldo Pomodoro exhibition is held at the galerie Tornabuoni (16 avenue Matignon, 75008) from 12 March to 11 June 2011. The Lancia di Luce II can be seen each Tuesday and Thursday, from 10 AM to 12:30 PM, in the courtyard of the Italian Embassy in Paris (47 rue de Varenne, 75007).

BOOKS

Café Society

Names, and what names! Mona Bismarck, Cecil Beaton, Stavros Niarchos, the Windsors, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Baron Alexis de Redé… Places, and what places! Juan les Pins, Montecatini, the castle of Groussay, the Chiberta golf course, or simply the deck of a yacht… The author brings back to life a golden age, one in which the aristocrats and crooks knew how to make money but also how to spend it in eccentric and creative ways, giving preference to the financing of avant-garde ballets rather than that of a football team. Portraits and key moments (such as the Beistegui ball at the Labia palace in Venice, in 1951), draw the portrait of a unique era, in love with fashion (Chanel, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga) and with the decorative arts (Bérard, Jean-Michel Frank, Emilio Terry), one that saw the influence of old Continent beaten back by the American continent, out to conquer but full of admiration…
• Café Society, Mondains, mécènes et artistes 1920-1960, by Thierry Coudert, Flammarion, 2010, 320 p., 60 €

PARIS – During the sale of pre-Colombian art held on 21 March 2011 (Binoche-Giquello), a statue of a Maya god was sold for 3.15 million €, the highest bid at Drouot in 2011. Its authenticity has been put in doubt by the INAH (Instituto nacional de Antropologia e Historia).

ON ART-OF-THE-DAY.INFO

This week, do not miss

SHAFIC ABBOUD Paintings 1948-2003

PARIS – The Institut du monde arabe dedicates a retrospective to Shafic Abboud, a major Lebanese and Parisian artist of the second half of the XXth century. His work, full of color and light, is a manifest for freedom and a permanent gangway between France, Lebanon and the Arab world.